QUOTE : beneath Lincoln’s tenderness and kindness, he was without question the most complex, ambitious, willful, and implacable leader of them all. They could trumpet self-serving ambitions, they could criticize Lincoln, mock him, irritate him, infuriate him, exacerbate the pressure upon him; everything would be tolerated so long as they pursued their jobs with passion and skill, so long as they were headed in the direction he had defined for them and presented a united front when it counted most, as it surely did on September 22, 1862, when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation.